


saying it out loud

by you_idjits



Series: love, in fire and blood [7]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-05
Updated: 2015-05-05
Packaged: 2018-03-29 02:55:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3879508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/you_idjits/pseuds/you_idjits
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean follows Cas to his therapy session.<br/>The conclusion of a story arc. The end of Dean's nightmares, for now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	saying it out loud

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from Richard Siken's [Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out](http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/177722). The poem reminds me a lot of the things I was thinking about while writing this. If you have the time, read it.

They drive into town together. Dean puts on an old Led Zeppelin tape, because he doesn’t feel like talking. Cas picks up on that, but instead of saying anything, he reaches across the seat for Dean’s hand and just. Holds it.

So Dean drives one-handed for a while.

Cas hums along to the vamp on Kashmir, and Dean wonders when he learned the tune. Cas has a nice singing voice, steady, and Dean wonders about that too.

When they get into Lebanon, Cas starts giving directions, and then they’re pulling up outside of a nondescript grey building. Dean looks up at it, trying to connect the mundanity of the office with this thing he’s afraid of.

And what is it he’s afraid of, really? Himself?

“Alright,” Dean says, “let’s get this over with.” He drops Cas’s hand once they’re inside.

The receptionist recognizes Cas, waving them through to the shrink’s office. Dr. Sechse; that’s what Cas had called her.

“You must be Dean,” she says. He presses his silver ring against her wrist when they shake hands, because he’s been in this life for too long not to take precautions. She’s shorter than he expected. And now she’s smiling at Cas, telling him how happy she is that Dean could come. It takes Dean by surprise. She’s so… human. It’s been a long time since Dean’s been in the same room with someone who knows his name, but not about the gun in his waistband.

“Please, have a seat,” she says, so they do. Dean fidgets with the zipper of his coat, feeling her professional eyes on him. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Dean.”

“Yeah?” He glances at Cas. “What’ve you heard?”

“I’ve heard you think therapy is bullshit.”

He startles at the unexpected language. “Uh, well, yeah. I guess I do.”

“Why?”

He scoffs. “Already with the third-degree? Jesus, if I’d known–”

“If you’d known what, exactly? Dean, if you come into this room with preconceptions, I can’t help you. Try to let go of the cynicism. At least for the hour.”

Dean opens his mouth to crack a joke – probably something about cynicism being his middle name, or something equally lame – but then Cas says, very quietly, “Dean.”

“What?” He can feel their eyes on him, both of them, just staring. Ugh, this is why he didn’t want to come here. He knew it’d be like this. Too many people worried about him means nobody’s happy.

“If you don’t think you can do this, we’ll leave.”

Aw, come on. Of all the things Cas could have said. “Hey, no, no. I ain’t chickening out.” Christ, did he really say that? Like therapy is some middle-school game of Truth or Dare.

Dr. Sechse writes something down on her notepad. From here, it looks vaguely like the word “machismo.”

“So what’s the plan, then? I talk about my feelings, cry a river, mission complete?”

“There is no plan,” says Dr. Sechse. “Castiel asked if you could join us for a session because he wanted a space where you felt comfortable talking. It doesn’t have to be about your feelings.”

Where he felt– this is the _opposite_ of that. Dean hates unfamiliarity, unpredictability. It usually means someone’s in danger. “Come on, Cas,” he sighs, wiping a hand down his face.

Cas meets his eyes. He says to Dr. Sechse, “Dean’s been having trouble with nightmares lately. Perhaps he’d like to talk about that?”

This fucker. If Dean wasn’t so in love with Cas, he’d probably want to punch him.

“Okay,” Dr. Sechse says. “If that’s what you want, Dean.”

Dean gets that Cas has good intentions here. He also gets that Cas has an ulterior motive: maybe, if Dean talks about what’s been going on for the last two weeks, he’ll stop being such an asshole.

That’s not an unfair thing for Cas to want. Maybe it’s a thing Dean should want, too.

“Okay,” he says. “I guess I could– I mean– it’s pretty boring.”

“It’s okay,” Dr. Sechse says. “I get paid to listen to you no matter what.”

Dean kind of likes her. Kind of.

He thinks about what he can and can’t say. It probably won’t go over well if he tries to tell this woman about his nightmares of being trapped in the empty space between Heaven and Hell with monsters who never die.

“I keep dreaming about Cas,” he says, though it’s not where he meant to start.

Cas looks at him. He looks back.

“How so?” asks Dr. Sechse.

He tunes her out. He focuses on the curious curve of Cas’s eyebrows, on the blue of Cas’s eyes.

“I keep dreaming I’m losing you,” he says.

Cas’s mouth goes soft, lips parting.

“Every night it’s the same, only… different. The cemetery. The lake. The crypt. I don’t–” Dean chokes on the sudden lump in his throat. “I don’t know what to do with it. I don’t know how to deal with it.”

“That’s why you’re here,” says the doctor. “To deal with it.”

“You didn’t tell me,” Cas says.

“It didn’t matter. I wake up and you’re there. So it’s okay.”

“Dean,” Cas says.

“It’s okay,” he repeats, more firmly. “Sometimes these things just happen, Cas.”

“It’s not fair.”

“Yeah,” he says, “maybe not. But what else is new? The sky is blue, the ocean is deep, and I’m worried I’ll lose you. Same old.”

“You won’t,” Cas says.

Dean looks down at his knees, suddenly embarrassed by this conversation, by his childish fears.

“Castiel tells me you’re an army veteran,” Dr. Sechse says.

“Yeah. Uh. Yeah.”

“You two served together?”

Dean nods. He kind of likes the idea, actually. He and Cas, foxhole buddies. Always caught in enemy fire.

“And now you’re… living together? Is that right?”

Dean thinks about the connotations she’ll take from his answers. She’ll probably– she’ll probably think different of him, once she knows that he and Cas are… He feels the compulsive need to clarify that they aren’t, like, involved. Yet.

Not that he doesn’t want to be. Obviously, he does. But he’s not sure how he feels about other people judging him for– with guys– well, one guy in particular–

She’ll see him differently. He’s not sure how he feels about other people judging him for something that makes him happy.

“Yeah, we’re living together. With my brother,” he adds.

“We’re also sleeping together,” Cas says. “Without his brother.”

Dean feels every nerve ending in his body light up. “Cas! We’re not– uh, listen, Dr. Sechse, we’re not sleeping together.”

She raises an eyebrow, but she looks more amused than judgmental.

“But we share a bed,” Cas says, making that confused squinty face of his.

“That’s not– Christ, Cas, that’s not the same.” Dean rubs both hands over his face.

“I don’t understand.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Dean says. “We’ll talk about this later. It doesn’t matter.”

“But it does,” Cas says. “We were discussing your nightmares. I thought it relevant that you dream about me dying when I’m sleeping at your side.”

“But that doesn’t mean we’re–” Dean looks at Dr. Sechse, waving his arms in a gesture of helplessness.

“Sleeping together implies sex, Castiel,” Dr. Sechse says. “I think that’s what Dean here is trying to explain.”

“Ah.” Cas nods. “I see.”

“It’s not– we don’t, you know, do that,” Dean assures the doctor.

“But I would like to have sex with you,” Cas says.

Dean splutters and blushes and stammers for a while. Dr. Sechse laughs, which is probably unprofessional or something, making fun of her patient’s suffering. And oh, does Dean suffer. Then he falls silent, looks down at his hands.

“Uh, me too,” he says. “That is, you know. Someday.”

He feels Cas’s eyes on him.

“Okay,” Dr. Sechse is. “Great. Now that we’ve got that straightened out,” and the pun is not lost on _any_ of them, “let’s get back to–”

“Can we go?” Dean blurts. “I mean. I know the hour’s not over but I think– uh. I think Cas and I need to go over some stuff on our own.”

“Whatever you need,” she says.

“Cas?”

“Of course,” Cas says, getting to his feet. “Thank you for your time.”

“Yeah, thanks.” Dean thinks he might even mean it. Maybe this was the point of coming here. Maybe it wasn’t about the shrink at all, maybe it was about Dean. He told Sam that he and Cas are getting better at talking to each other, and it’s true. But maybe he needed an outside push on this one.

And isn’t that just what she said? Him, here, this office. _Whatever you need_.

“See you next time,” Dean says, and he doesn’t miss the way Cas’s face lights up.

They walk out to the car. Dean puts his hands in his pockets and scuffs his shoes on the asphalt. “That wasn’t– I mean. That wasn’t so bad. Not like I’ve got this awesome weight lifted from my shoulders all of a sudden, or anything. But I get why you like her.”

He volunteers the thoughts because he knows Cas would never ask. But Cas cares about what Dean thinks, right? That’s why he brought him today.

“I’m glad you came,” Cas says.

“Yeah. Me too.”

He opens Cas’s car door for him. They’re acting kind of dumb around each other, like teenagers.

“You’ll tell me,” Cas says, once they’re driving, “if there’s anything I can do about the nightmares.”

Dean thinks for a while. “Okay,” he says finally, “I will.”

Then they drive in silence, and it’s not uncomfortable. Just uncertain.

“I should probably cut back on the alcohol. You were right about that.”

“Yes.”

“And it wouldn’t hurt to– um. At night. It’s easier if I have a reminder that you’re there, even when I’m asleep.” Dean thinks Cas knows what he’s asking for.

“Okay.”

“Okay,” Dean repeats, and huffs a relieved laugh. He thinks that’s some kind of pre-teen novel quote.

They get back to the Bunker. Cas goes back to the book he left open in the library. Dean hovers near by, actually debating _not_ ending this conversation. “By the way,” he says, “we need to talk about outing.”

“What do you mean?”

“Outing. That’s the term for, like, announcing that someone’s gay without their permission.” He’d looked it up on the internet three nights ago, along with a bunch of other terms he thought he ought to know if he was going to be kind-of dating a dude.

“I don’t understand,” Cas says. He leans forward, elbows on the table.

“Today, dude. At the therapy thing. You told her we were– you know. Together.”

“I didn’t realize it was something you wanted to hide.”

“No, Cas, no, that’s not what I–” He slows down. “I don’t want to hide anything. But this is really new to me and I’m not very good at it. Cut me some slack, man.”

“You want me to… omit information regarding our relationship when speaking with strangers.”

“Yeah. That. Or at least, like. I want us to talk about it first.”

Cas is silent for a little too long. Dean looks up to find him smiling.

“What?”

“Nothing. Only– Dean Winchester, wanting to talk about his feelings. I never thought I’d live to see the day. And I thought I’d live for quite some time. A few millennia, at the very least.”

“Ha ha, very funny.” Dean laughs too, though, because it kind of is. He’s a mess. “It’s just– I’m trying, here. I’m really trying to do this right.”

“I know you are.”

“I want to do this right.”

“I know you do.”

“And the stuff we talked about back there–”

“You mean the sex.”

“Yeah. Um. That.”

“Maybe we could start with kissing,” Cas says. “I would be fine with that.”

Of course Cas would say something like that. Dean rubs his hands over his face.

“So, do you mean– like, if I– if I wanted to kiss you. Or– or something. That would be okay?”

Cas smiles. “Yes, Dean, that would be very okay.”

Dean wants to. He imagines himself doing it, taking two long strides, taking Cas’s face in his hands and kissing him. Dean tries to make his muscles do it, to work together to carry him there.

He stays where he is. Fucking coward. “Uh,” Dean says, “not– not right now. But maybe later.”

“Maybe later,” Cas repeats.

“Soon.”

Cas nods, and then he ducks his head and laughs.

“What? Are you laughing at me?”

“Yes, I am.”

Dean feels his face growing hot. He’s being immature and he knows it, but this is hard.

“Is it because I’m a man?” Cas asks. “Is that why you’re taking this so slowly?”

“No! No, that’s not it. I mean, that’s new, but it’s– it’s okay.”

“Then what is it?”

“It’s just– it’s you, Cas. It’s you.”

“So?”

“So you’re important. You know. I don’t want to mess this up. If I’m gonna kiss you, I have to do it right.”

Cas gives him a look. Sighs. “Okay,” he says, standing and stretching. “Well, I’m going to make lunch. I hope you give me fair warning when you’re planning on making a move.”

Dean pretends to laugh at that. Cas is right, of course. It’s not rocket science. It’s just kissing. Dean can do kissing.

Well, he’ll work on it. For now, he focuses on other things. He cleans and checks all the weapons they have. He calls Sam, who’s visiting Amelia for the weekend. They shoot the breeze for a while, and then Dean mentions he went with Cas to the therapy thing today, and they talk about that. Sam says he’s going to bring Amelia back with him this time, for a couple of days at least. He says Amelia says hi. He sounds happy.

Things are okay. Dean’s okay. He talked about something personal today, and he’s okay. These nightmares have been digging at him for weeks, like splinters under his skin. But he’s okay.

That night, when Dean gets into bed, Cas reaches for him. Cas pulls him close and spreads a flat hand against his sternum, against the place where his muscles meet his bones.

“Hey,” Dean says. He turns his head, looking at Cas through his eyelashes. “You’re pretty great, you know that?”

Cas sighs a tired sigh. He doesn’t say anything, but he presses his cheek to Dean’s shoulder and closes his eyes. He falls asleep like that.

Dean watches him for a while. Then he falls asleep as well. This time, he only dreams good dreams.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Onja for the edits. Crossposted on tumblr.


End file.
